Julian Assange

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has said that in a just court, the U.S. government would be apologizing to Bradley Manning. Mr. Assange is not a U.S. citizen, nor does he have a clue about the morals or laws that American citizens abide by. In fact he doesn't even have the courage to stand by his own beliefs. Whether it is leaking government secrets or sexual improprieties, his response is to run and hide. In America, we call someone who does that a coward. Peggy Alley

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has said that in a just court, the U.S. government would be apologizing to Bradley Manning. Mr. Assange is not a U.S. citizen, nor does he have a clue about the morals or laws that American citizens abide by. In fact he doesn't even have the courage to stand by his own beliefs. Whether it is leaking government secrets or sexual improprieties, his response is to run and hide. In America, we call someone who does that a coward. Peggy Alley

A military judge ruled Tuesday that Army Pfc. Bradley E. Manning violated the Espionage Act when he gave a trove of classified material to the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks to publish online. But Army Col. Denise Lind found the onetime Marylander not guilty of aiding the enemy - the most serious charge brought by the government, which carries a possible life sentence. Manning, 25, could still be sentenced to decades in prison for leaking hundreds of thousands of war logs, diplomatic cables and battlefield video footage in the largest security breach in U.S. history.

It was not a surprise that a judicial officer recommended that Pfc. Bradley Manning should be court-martialed ("Manning trial recommended," Jan. 13). This was inevitable from the beginning of the Article 32 hearing. And just as inevitable is that there will be a court martial. I and others will be outside the military base, presumably Fort Meade, during the court martial to show our support for him. And a final inevitability is that Private Manning will be found guilty. What remains to be seen is what will be the sentence.

A group of journalists and freedom of information campaigners are suing in federal court in Baltimore to get greater access to proceedings in the military trial of Army Pfc. Bradley Manning who is accused of leaking thousands of classified documents. The suit was brought by Julian Assange, the organizer behind WikiLeaks, Guardian columnist Glenn Greenwald, The Nation opinion journal and other organizations. It asks for access to filings in the case, orders of the court and transcripts or audio recordings of the proceedings.

The legal pursuit of Wikileaks, a transnational website devoted to publishing secret government documents worldwide, is reaching a boiling point. After publishing tens of thousands of classified U.S. documents revealing details of the war in Afghanistan, the group is now promising to publish more of the same. The actions of the leaker, alleged to be U.S. Army PFC Bradley Manning, are likely violations of U.S. espionage laws. Mr. Manning was already charged under the Espionage Act with the submission to Wikileaks earlier this year of a classified video showing the death of two journalists in Iraq.

Over the weekend, Julian Assange, the reclusive renegade computer hacker who has made a career of unveiling government and corporate secrets on the whistle-blower website Wikileaks, confounded American policymakers for the second time in three months when he released nearly 400,000 classified field reports from the war in Iraq. In July, Wikileaks posted 90,000 classified documents describing a litany of strategic setbacks, human rights abuses and widespread corruption in the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

Army investigators found nearly half a million field reports from Iraq and Afghanistan on a computer memory card among the belongings of Pfc. Bradley Manning, with a note suggesting that an unnamed recipient "sit on this information" while deciding how best to distribute it, according to testimony Monday. The note called the reports "possibly one of the more significant documents of our time" and said they would remove "the fog of war" and reveal "the true nature of 21st century asymmetric warfare," Army special agent David Shaver told the officer leading a preliminary hearing at Fort Meade.

Julian Assange, the peripatetic and elusive founder of the whistleblower web site Wikileaks, put himself at the center of a fine bit of political theater over the weekend when he used his fugitive status at the Ecuadorean embassy in London to demand the U.S. cease persecuting those who seek to hold governments accountable. Having stage managed a diplomatic crisis between Britain and Ecuador that threatens to rupture relations between the two countries, Mr. Assange is milking the incident for all it's worth, but it remains to be seen whether that will be enough to get him out of the jam he's in. Mr. Assange had been living in London for the last two years after fleeing Sweden to avoid being questioned about two women who claim he raped them.

A group of journalists and freedom of information campaigners are suing in federal court in Baltimore to get greater access to proceedings in the military trial of Army Pfc. Bradley Manning who is accused of leaking thousands of classified documents. The suit was brought by Julian Assange, the organizer behind WikiLeaks, Guardian columnist Glenn Greenwald, The Nation opinion journal and other organizations. It asks for access to filings in the case, orders of the court and transcripts or audio recordings of the proceedings.

Julian Assange, the peripatetic and elusive founder of the whistleblower web site Wikileaks, put himself at the center of a fine bit of political theater over the weekend when he used his fugitive status at the Ecuadorean embassy in London to demand the U.S. cease persecuting those who seek to hold governments accountable. Having stage managed a diplomatic crisis between Britain and Ecuador that threatens to rupture relations between the two countries, Mr. Assange is milking the incident for all it's worth, but it remains to be seen whether that will be enough to get him out of the jam he's in. Mr. Assange had been living in London for the last two years after fleeing Sweden to avoid being questioned about two women who claim he raped them.

It was not a surprise that a judicial officer recommended that Pfc. Bradley Manning should be court-martialed ("Manning trial recommended," Jan. 13). This was inevitable from the beginning of the Article 32 hearing. And just as inevitable is that there will be a court martial. I and others will be outside the military base, presumably Fort Meade, during the court martial to show our support for him. And a final inevitability is that Private Manning will be found guilty. What remains to be seen is what will be the sentence.

In closing arguments Thursday, Army prosecutors presented a damning portrait of Pfc. Bradley Manning as a soldier who used his top-secret security clearance to scour classified computer networks for documents and burn the data onto discs with the express purpose of leaking it. "I'm throwing everything I got on [Guantanamo] at you now," Manning typed from his bunk south of Baghdad during an early-morning online chat with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, according to a government presentation.

Army investigators found nearly half a million field reports from Iraq and Afghanistan on a computer memory card among the belongings of Pfc. Bradley Manning, with a note suggesting that an unnamed recipient "sit on this information" while deciding how best to distribute it, according to testimony Monday. The note called the reports "possibly one of the more significant documents of our time" and said they would remove "the fog of war" and reveal "the true nature of 21st century asymmetric warfare," Army special agent David Shaver told the officer leading a preliminary hearing at Fort Meade.

Military prosecutors building a case against the 24-year-old Army soldier accused of sending hundreds of thousands of classified documents to WikiLeaks sought to show Saturday that Pfc. Bradley Manning had access to the secret documents and the ability to share them with the world. Defense attorneys spent little time challenging Manning's retrieval of the information, but instead used the government witnesses to draw a picture of a bright but deeply troubled soldier who was allowed to poke through a trove of top-secret information even after showing clear signs of emotional distress.

Military prosecutors building a case against the 24-year-old Army soldier accused of sending hundreds of thousands of classified documents to WikiLeaks sought to show Saturday that Pfc. Bradley Manning had access to the secret documents and the ability to share them with the world. Defense attorneys spent little time challenging Manning's retrieval of the information, but instead used the government witnesses to draw a picture of a bright but deeply troubled soldier who was allowed to poke through a trove of top-secret information even after showing clear signs of emotional distress.

In closing arguments Thursday, Army prosecutors presented a damning portrait of Pfc. Bradley Manning as a soldier who used his top-secret security clearance to scour classified computer networks for documents and burn the data onto discs with the express purpose of leaking it. "I'm throwing everything I got on [Guantanamo] at you now," Manning typed from his bunk south of Baghdad during an early-morning online chat with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, according to a government presentation.

To his supporters, Army Pfc. Bradley E. Manning is a hero, the whistle-blower who revealed U.S. war crimes and diplomatic double-dealing in the Pentagon records and State Department cables he is alleged to have sent to the anti-secrecy organization WikiLeaks. To the government, which is bringing criminal charges against the former intelligence analyst, he is a turncoat who endangered lives and damaged relations with allies by stealing and leaking hundreds of thousands of classified documents.